Method for using victim buffer in cache coherent systems

ABSTRACT

In accordance with various aspects of the invention, a recall transaction is issued if a tag filter entry needs to be freed up for an incoming transaction. Directory entries chosen for a recall transaction are pushed into a fully associative structure called victim buffer. If this structure gets full, then an entry is selected from entries inside the victim buffer for the recall.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. Non-Provisional application Ser. No. 15/603,040, which was filed on May 23, 2017 and entitled VICTIM BUFFER FOR CACHE COHERENT SYSTEMS by Craig Stephen FORREST et al., the entire disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention is in the field of cache coherence systems and, more specifically, for system-on-chip designs.

BACKGROUND

Since computer processors with caches were first combined into multiprocessor systems there has been a need for cache coherence. More recently cache coherent multiprocessor systems have been implemented in systems-on-chips (SoCs). The cache coherent systems in SoCs comprise instances of processor intellectual properties (IPs), memory controller IPs, and cache coherent system IPs connecting the processors and memory controllers. More recently some SoCs integrate other agent IPs having coherent caches, such as graphics processing units, into heterogeneous multiprocessor systems. Such systems comprise a single centralized monolithic cache coherent system IP.

In the physical design of such SoCs, the centralized cache coherent system IP is a hub of connectivity. Wires connect transaction interfaces of each agent with the coherence system IP and from that to the memory controller IP. Such an arrangement causes an area of significant congestion for wire routing during the physical design phase of the chip design process.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention involves a cache coherence system. In accordance with various aspects of the invention, an agent may be associated with a tag filter or null filter. In accordance with various aspects of the invention, a recall transaction is issued if a tag filter entry needs to be freed up for an incoming transaction. With victim buffers, directory entry chosen for a recall transaction is pushed into a fully associative structure called victim buffer. If this structure gets full, then an entry is selected from entries inside the victim buffer for the recall.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a system in accordance with the various aspects of the invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates a pointer management structure of the system of FIG. 1 in accordance with the various aspects of the invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates a pointer management structure of the system of FIG. 1 in accordance with the various aspects of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

To the extent that the terms “including”, “includes”, “having”, “has”, “with”, or variants thereof are used in either the detailed description and the claims, such terms are intended to be inclusive in a similar manner to the term “comprising”. The invention is described in accordance with the aspects and embodiments in the following description with reference to the figures, in which like numbers represent the same or similar elements. Reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” or similar language means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the various aspects and embodiments are included in at least one embodiment of the invention. Thus, appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment,” “in an embodiment,” “in certain embodiments,” and similar language throughout this specification refer to the various aspects and embodiments of the invention. It is noted that, as used in this description, the singular forms “a,” “an” and “the” include plural referents, unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.

The described features, structures, or characteristics of the invention may be combined in any suitable manner in accordance with the aspects and one or more embodiments of the invention. In the following description, numerous specific details are recited to provide an understanding of various embodiments of the invention. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize, however, that the invention may be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or with other methods, components, materials, and so forth. In other instances, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring the aspects of the invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, FIG. 2, and FIG. 3, a distributed Coherence Enforcement (DCE) directory manager (or Directory or Snoop Filter) maintains cache states of all the agents it is tracking. An agent may be associated with a tag filter or null filter. In accordance with various aspects of the invention, a recall transaction is issued if a tag filter entry needs to be freed up for an incoming transaction. With victim buffers, a directory entry chosen for a recall transaction is pushed into a fully associative structure called victim buffer. If this structure gets full, then an entry is selected from entries inside the victim buffer for the recall.

In accordance with various aspects of the invention, a victim buffer is a memory to store snoop filter entries that have recently been evicted. Furthermore, a victim buffer is configurable based on user needs and includes address/tag or information about agents that share the data and agents that own the data. A victim buffer is associated with each tag filter. A transaction looks up tag filter array. Tag comparison is done in the following state. Parameters that will be considered here is a number of victim buffers associated with a tag filter. In accordance with various aspects of the invention, victim buffers are implemented as flip-flops. So, no error protection is added for victim buffers. In accordance with further aspects of the invention, victim buffers can be read just like transaction table if debug is enabled, as noted below.

Lookup address is matched with addresses in victim buffer and the tag filter. Directory response to the Active Transaction Manager (ATM) is generated combining victim buffer results with the tag filter results. The ATM includes a transaction table in the directory and can handle memory and state information for all current transaction. In accordance with various aspects of the invention, there are currently up to 96 entries. However, the scope of the invention is not limited by the size, which can be varied as needed or as dictated by the system limitations. Victim buffer access and comparison is done in P1 stage of the pipeline. Victim Buffer modification is done in P2 stage of directory pipeline.

For an incoming command, which doesn't have a match in a tag filter, and if allocation is required, then the DCE directory allocates a way in the tag filter. If the allocated way is a valid way, directory entry stored in that way is pushed in the victim buffer. A recall transaction is issued only in case the victim buffer is full and there is a need to put an entry in the victim buffer; it is not a victim buffer hit. The recall entry is selected from the head of the victim buffer.

In case of victim buffer hit on a Command lookup, the entry needs to be swapped with the entry from a tag filter. This needs to be done for all the tag filters for which victim buffer hit happens irrespective of if the tag filter is being associated with the requesting agent or not. So, if a swap is happening, then the system initiates a write entry from the victim buffer to tag array at the same cycle P2 (array write in P3 stage). If ways are available (a way being invalid) in the tag filter, then swap will not need to push an entry to the victim buffer. If all ways are valid, then swap will involve pushing an entry from tag filter ways to the victim buffer.

In case of a swap, the ATM is informed that the way being used for that transaction using dir_way interface. For update messages, if it hits a victim buffer, directory state is updated in place and if it results in invalidating entry; the system compresses the victim buffer around it by mechanisms explained herein.

For an update if it hits the tag filter and it invalidates Tag Filter entry, then the oldest entry from victim buffer from the same index is swapped back from victim buffer to the tag filter. Recall all and recall by index-way maintenance operations bypass the victim buffer. So behavior is similar with and without victim buffer. Recall all operation at the end calls recall victim buffer operation if it exists. Recall Victim buffer operation is newly added. If recall by address transaction hits victim buffer, that specific entry is selected for recall and victim is compressed around that entry.

Victim Buffer is implemented in the directory manager of the DCE. Victim buffer is comprised of 2 structures. Directory entry storage structure and Pointer management structure. Pointer management structure handles victim buffer push and pop control and relative age order among the victim buffer entries. Victim Buffer pointer structure has 2 interfaces:

-   -   Push interface: push input to add new entry to tail and         push_pointer output to address victim buffer directory entry         storage structure.     -   Compress interface: compress interface to compress around         pointers if entry gets removed from victim buffer either due to         victim buffer hit or an update request.

The implementation of this structure is divided into 2 parts.

-   -   1. Free list manager: It provides a free pointer on every push         which is provided to the compressible FIFO and storage         structure. On every compress request a pointer is reclaimed by         free list manager.     -   2. Compressible FIFO: compressible FIFO manages age ordering         between pointers. When pointer in the middle on the FIFO gets         compressed, it changes age ordering between pointers by         compressing around pointers getting removed.

If the current pointer ordering is a→b→c→d. If the system has to compress around b, then the new order will look like a→c→d after compressing around pointer b.

Implementation of the compressible FIFO: each pointer is linked to other pointer as shift register. Adding pointer to tail is done by writing to register, which is just before last valid register in the shift register. Removing the head pointer is achieved by doing a shift operation on all the shift registers. Similarly compressing around a middle entry is done by shifting registers, which appear prior to the register, to compress on. For example, for a list a→b→c→d, if the system compresses on the pointer c, then it would shift a, b overwriting c. So, the list looks like a→b→d.

With each pointer, the system also stores the index, to which the pointer is associated with. While shifting pointers with mechanism mentioned above, the system also shifts indexes with the pointers. These indexes are used to determine victim buffer location to swapped in case of tag filter update hit results in invalidating the tag filter. Behavior of DCE and victim buffer is shown in the table below for possible input conditions.

TABLE 1 Lookup Tag Victim Tag Victim Filter Victim Compress Victim Victim Recall Buffer Filter Buffer ways Buffer Victim Buffer buffer Entry CMDReq Present Hit Hit full Full Swap Buffer Push Pop Recall Source CmdRdUnq Yes Yes No X X No No No No No N/A CmdRdCln No Yes Yes X Yes Yes Yes No No N/A CmdRdVld No X Yes Yes No No No N/A CmdClnUnq No Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Victim Buffer No No No Yes No No N/A No X No No No No No N/A No Yes No X X N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A No No Yes X N/A N/A N/A N/A Yes Tag Filter No X N/A N/A N/A N/A No N/A

TABLE 2 Maintenance Operations Tag Victim Tag Victim Filter Victim Victim Victim Recall Buffer Filter Buffer ways Buffer Buffer buffer Entry CMDReq Present Hit Hit full Full Swap Compress Push Pop Recall Source Recall By Yes/No Yes No X X No No No No Yes Tag Address Filter No Yes X X No Yes No No Yes Victim Buffer Recall by Yes/No Yes No X X No No No No Yes Tag index way Filter Recall all Recall X X X X No No No Yes Yes Victim victim buffer Buffer

TABLE 3 Updates Tag Victim Tag Victim Filter Victim Victim Victim Recall Buffer Filter Buffer ways Buffer Buffer buffer Entry CMDReq Present Hit Hit full Full Swap Compress Push Pop Recall Source UpInv X Yes No X X Maybe Maybe No No No N/A Yes No Yes X X No No No No No N/A

The ranges of values provided above do not limit the scope of the present invention. It is understood that each intervening value, between the upper and lower limit of that range and any other stated or intervening value in that stated range, is encompassed within the scope of the invention. The upper and lower limits of these smaller ranges may independently be included in the smaller ranges and are also encompassed within the invention, subject to any specifically excluded limit in the stated range. Where the stated range includes one or both of the limits, ranges excluding either or both of those included limits are also included in the invention.

Some embodiments of the invention include a firewall unit in the transport topology. A firewall unit moots transaction requests with certain characteristics, such as a particular address range or a particular target unit.

Some embodiments of the invention include a buffer in the transport topology. A buffer can store a number of requests or responses in transit between functional units. One type of a buffer is a FIFO. Another type of buffer is a rate adapter, which stores partial data bursts.

Unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. The verb couple, its gerundial forms, and other variants, should be understood to refer to either direct connections or operative manners of interaction between elements of the invention through one or more intermediating elements, whether or not any such intermediating element is recited. Any methods and materials similar or equivalent to those described herein can also be used in the practice of the invention. Representative illustrative methods and materials are also described.

All publications and patents cited in this specification are herein incorporated by reference as if each individual publication or patent were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference and are incorporated herein by reference to disclose and describe the methods and/or system in connection with which the publications are cited. The citation of any publication is for its disclosure prior to the filing date and should not be construed as an admission that the invention is not entitled to antedate such publication by virtue of prior invention. Further, the dates of publication provided may be different from the actual publication dates which may need to be independently confirmed.

Additionally, it is intended that such equivalents include both currently known equivalents and equivalents developed in the future, i.e., any elements developed that perform the same function, regardless of structure. The scope of the invention, therefore, is not intended to be limited to the exemplary embodiments shown and described herein.

In accordance with the teaching of the invention a computer and a computing device are articles of manufacture. Other examples of an article of manufacture include: an electronic component residing on a mother board, a server, a mainframe computer, or other special purpose computer each having one or more processors (e.g., a Central Processing Unit, a Graphical Processing Unit, or a microprocessor) that is configured to execute a computer readable program code (e.g., an algorithm, hardware, firmware, and/or software) to receive data, transmit data, store data, or perform methods.

The article of manufacture (e.g., computer or computing device) includes a non-transitory computer readable medium or storage that may include a series of instructions, such as computer readable program steps or code encoded therein. In certain aspects of the invention, the non-transitory computer readable medium includes one or more data repositories. Thus, in certain embodiments that are in accordance with any aspect of the invention, computer readable program code (or code) is encoded in a non-transitory computer readable medium of the computing device. The processor or a module, in turn, executes the computer readable program code to create or amend an existing computer-aided design using a tool. The term “module” as used herein may refer to one or more circuits, components, registers, processors, software subroutines, or any combination thereof. In other aspects of the embodiments, the creation or amendment of the computer-aided design is implemented as a web-based software application in which portions of the data related to the computer-aided design or the tool or the computer readable program code are received or transmitted to a computing device of a host.

An article of manufacture or system, in accordance with various aspects of the invention, is implemented in a variety of ways: with one or more distinct processors or microprocessors, volatile and/or non-volatile memory and peripherals or peripheral controllers; with an integrated microcontroller, which has a processor, local volatile and non-volatile memory, peripherals and input/output pins; discrete logic which implements a fixed version of the article of manufacture or system; and programmable logic which implements a version of the article of manufacture or system which can be reprogrammed either through a local or remote interface. Such logic could implement a control system either in logic or via a set of commands executed by a processor.

Accordingly, the preceding merely illustrates the various aspects and principles as incorporated in various embodiments of the invention. It will be appreciated that those of ordinary skill in the art will be able to devise various arrangements which, although not explicitly described or shown herein, embody the principles of the invention and are included within its spirit and scope. Furthermore, all examples and conditional language recited herein are principally intended to aid the reader in understanding the principles of the invention and the concepts contributed by the inventors to furthering the art, and are to be construed as being without limitation to such specifically recited examples and conditions. Moreover, all statements herein reciting principles, aspects, and embodiments of the invention, as well as specific examples thereof, are intended to encompass both structural and functional equivalents thereof. Additionally, it is intended that such equivalents include both currently known equivalents and equivalents developed in the future, i.e., any elements developed that perform the same function, regardless of structure.

Therefore, the scope of the invention, is not intended to be limited to the various aspects and embodiments discussed and described herein. Rather, the scope and spirit of invention is embodied by the appended claims. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for managing a directory, the method comprising: allocating a way in a tag filter for an incoming transaction; issuing a recall transaction when the way in the tag filter is valid and a victim buffer is full in order to free up the victim buffer for the incoming transaction, wherein the victim buffer stores information for the directory's structure and is implemented as flip-flops and without error protection and accessing the victim buffer is done in one pipeline stage and modifying the victim buffer is done in another pipeline stage; pushing an entry contained in the valid way to the victim buffer; selecting an entry from the victim buffer for the recall transaction; removing the entry from the victim buffer; and reclaiming a pointer entry by a free list manager when the entry from the victim buffer is removed, thereby freeing up the way in the tag filter, wherein current age ordering is altered by compressing around one pointer entry thereby changing the age ordering.
 2. The method of claim 1 further comprising configuring the victim buffer.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the victim buffer includes information about owner agents and share agents.
 4. The method of claim 1 further comprising associating the victim buffer with a tag filter.
 5. A method for handling recall transactions, the method comprising: receiving a command at a directory; determining if allocation of a way in a tag filter is required when the command does not have a match in the tag filter; allocating a way in the tag filter when the command does not have a match in the tag filter; and pushing an existing entry in the way, if the way in the tag filter is valid, to a victim buffer, wherein the victim buffer stores the directory information and is implemented as flip-flops without adding error protection to the victim buffer; and initiating a write entry of a victim buffer entry from the victim buffer to the tag filter, wherein accessing the victim buffer is done in one pipeline stage and modifying the victim buffer is done in another pipeline stage, and wherein current age ordering is altered by compressing around a pointer entry thereby changing the age ordering.
 6. The method of claim 5 further comprising updating a pointer manager of the victim buffer.
 7. The method of claim 5 further comprising the step of compressing around a pointer of the victim buffer if the victim buffer entry gets removed from the victim buffer.
 8. The method of claim 5 further comprising the step of initiating a write entry, during a recall operation, to the tag filter without a push entry to the victim buffer.
 9. A method comprising: receiving a command at a directory; determining if the command is a hit for a victim buffer entry in a victim buffer, wherein the victim buffer stores the directory's structure and the victim buffer includes flip-flops and without adding error protection to the victim buffer and accessing the victim buffer is done in one pipeline stage and modifying the victim buffer is done is another pipeline stage and wherein current age ordering is altered by compressing around a pointer entry thereby changing the age ordering; initiating a write entry from victim buffer's way to a way of a tag filter; determining if all of a plurality of ways of the tag filter are valid; moving, when at least one way of the plurality of ways in the tag filter is invalid, the victim buffer's way entry to the tag filter entry with the invalid way without pushing the invalid way's entry to the victim buffer; and swapping, when all of the plurality of ways in the tag filter are valid, the victim buffer entry with one way selected from the plurality of ways in the tag filter by pushing the selected way's entry to the victim buffer.
 10. The method of claim 9 further comprising compressing around the victim buffer's pointer when the entry gets moved from the victim buffer if the command is a hit for the victim buffer entry. 